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Over the summer of 2017 and 2018, Mads Thomsen, an ecologist with the University of Canterbury, headed out on his monthly trip to survey and collect kelp samples from rimurapa forests along the coast. Where he would usually find a swirling mass of kelp fronds, he found only bare rock and open water. That summer, a marine heatwave caused sea surface temperatures in New Zealand to climb to record levels. “That event, over just a few months, wiped out all the bull kelp around Christchurch and Lyttelton Harbour,” he says.
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 176 July/August 2022.
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/the-kelp/
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2011. Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
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Richard Robinson © 2022. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
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THE KELP
Over the summer of 2017 and 2018, Mads Thomsen, an ecologist with the University of Canterbury, headed out on his monthly trip to survey and collect kelp samples from rimurapa forests along the coast. Where he would usually find a swirling mass of kelp fronds, he found only bare rock and open water. That summer, a marine heatwave caused sea surface temperatures in New Zealand to climb to record levels. “That event, over just a few months, wiped out all the bull kelp around Christchurch and Lyttelton Harbour,” he says.<br /> Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 176 July/August 2022.<br /> Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/the-kelp/<br /> Photograph Richard Robinson © 2011. Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.